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Lady Wimpleseed-Prissypott 2: “When a girl has money, she has money.”

In which Two-Ems is disappointed. We meet our heroine and the dilemma she finds herself in.

Previously the reader is introduced to Lord Dunnie, a member of the British aristocracy with one foot in the cemetery and one in the grave. He is dead broke. Sir Myles di Fussye-Pants suggests an American heiress is the solution to his dilemma. Lord Dunnie agrees.

When Sir Myles arrived home that foggy day in Londontown, he introduced his darling dear to his matchmaking scheme. However Mrs. Sir was not in the least enthusiastic. She wasn’t sure she could get any American heiress to go along with the proposition.

“That old wrinkled old thang,” she said. “He’s beginning to putter on one putter. He’s such a prune Danish and I am sure his putter is a prune as well. After all, we Americans like our prunes primed and ready to putter like yours, my dear Mylesie. By the way, we haven’t puttered all week. I need some puttering or it’s off to Daddy.”

With a right good jolly tallyho, he followed his wife into their boudoir. After three or four y’alls and an equal amount of war whoops, Sir in his altogether altogethers brought up the subject again. “Yes,” he said lying next to his beloved Two-Ms in their room-sized bed, “Dunnie is from good Viking stock. Viking and American stock, what an amazing copulation that would be.”

“But … “Her pouty lips pouted their pouty-est.

“It is a done deal, this deal with Dunnie. Society must have what society must have and we must all do our part in the game. Otherwise there will be no tally to tally-ho. The hounds won’t run and the fox will make an escape. So pleeze, my sweet, no pouty-wouties pleeze

“Yes, Mylesie,” she said, knowing when the battle was lost to his stiff upper lip. “Give a little, get a lot” was her motto, and she knew this was one of those times when it wouldn’t do to lay down the gauntlet.

“We’ll commission a Commission for The Match that we shall match matchlessly, you see. You do see, don’t you. We’ll ask Mother to do the commissioning. She’s right good for a nuptial or two. After all, she did well by us.”

“So who shall the unlucky girl be? I mean, lucky. Who shall we commission for Lord Dunnie?”

“I had in mind someone your own sweet self suggested. The daughter of a certain John Smith, the owner of Pocahantas Shipping. In American financial circles, he is very very, if you know what I mean.”

“But, Mylesie, I didn’t mean to connect her with an old fuddy, duddley like Wimsey Prissysottsey. I meant her for one of your young layabout studdleys. I promised her Moms. We’re cousins, you know, and the Old Prune will be such a disappointment. She wanted a regular Beau Brummell for her sweet young thang.”

“It’s Wimpleseed-Prissypott, dears. He’s the one.”

“Well, if you insist,” she said, then rolled over and gave him her sexiest kiss. She knew it was settled, and she wasn’t completely unhappy. Now she would have a friend to shop with, to spend their fathers’ fortunes with, to attend the balls with, to show off the best of the colonies, to make all those spoiled British society ladies jealous.

Thus it was agreed, and thus it was an American heiress who was agreed upon. She would be the spot of tea to pour new life into that old Wimpie. She was the very very that Dunnie needed. And the money wouldn’t be bad either.

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When the subject was broached to her of the arranged arrangement, the future Lady Marye Caterina Wimpleseed-Prissypott thought the arrangement was another of her mother’s derangements. She wanted none of it. At that time, her ladyship was a plain-jane Mary-Mary Smith from Brooklyn Heights. She hated the very idea of marrying a title to provide respectability for her filthy nouveau-riche family from the Southside of Nowheresville. She wanted what everybody wants when they are young and looking at life in all its potentials and their hormones are hormoning all over the place and they’ve got a bankload of cash to do anything that pops into their pretty little heads. True love. And the true love Mary-Mary wanted was her boyfriend from Brooklyn.

She had every intention of marrying that boyfriend of six months, Dilly O’Jones. She called him “My Sweet Dills,” when she was in the throes of passion. She was always in the throes of passion when he was within a block of her nubile and ready body. She loved to run her slim fingers through his ultra-greased, dark, Italian hair, hair he had inherited from his mamma’s side of the family. She held onto his tresses for her dear dear life on the back of his motorbyke when they cruised the streets of Manhattan. Though there was a lot of foreplay between this Romeo and Juliet, they had never consummated the relationship. She remained untouched, as pure as the driven snow.

She was still a virgin, but there were times she longed to surrender the state of her virginia to this dilly of a boyfriend. He was such a handsome lad that all the females he passed swooned and fainted when they saw his baby blues. But he had sworn his true love to his Mary-Mary from Brooklyn Heights and he was a man of his word. He loved her true-ly with all the trulyness his passionate, young Irish-Italian heart contained. Even more than that, he loved her a lot.

Unfortunately, for the young lovebirds, Mary-Mary had a mother and this mother reminded her how much she and her father had done for her. “With great wealth comes great responsibility,” her Moms said.

“But, Moms,” the sweet young thing said as she primped in front of the large mirror in the hallway, “when a girl has money, she has money. But money is not enough. One must have true love to be a happy girl. Otherwise … well, just otherwise.”

“That responsibility,” her Moms came back at her, “is the cost of the money. And there isn’t an otherwise in the world that can change that. It’s a trade-off. You can either be happy or you can be rich. Me, I’d rather be nouveau-riche. I may not be able to buy happiness but, at least, I can buy the dress. I am not up to living in some hovel on the side of the road, worrying about the kids and their next meal. And neither are you, dear.”

“But, Moms,” Mary-Mary said, ignoring her Moms’ logic, “you want me to marry unhappiness and misery. I want My Sweet Dills and I don’t like the pickle you’re putting me in. Daddykins can give him a position in his shipping company.”

“You would have your husband living off your fortune?”

“That’s what you are suggesting,” the daughter said. “To prop up some old fuddy of a British lord with Daddykins’ money.”

“This is different,” Moms said. She said it in such a way that you could take it all the way to the bank. She took her daughter by the shoulders and turned her to face her mother. “We’re getting a title in exchange.”

Got to tell you that I come by this foible and quirk thing from experience. Some would call it research. I call it getting through this darn thing called life. As Ringo used to sing, “It don’t come easy.”